


Something More

by lafiametta



Category: Emerald City (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, Amnesia, F/M, Romance, Set in Kansas, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9486269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/pseuds/lafiametta
Summary: What if the tornado didn’t take Dorothy to Oz, but brought someone else to Kansas instead?





	1. Chapter 1

The wind howled outside the windows of her truck as dirt and leaves scattered in rough waves against the glass. She dipped her head and gazed through the windshield, glimpsing a silver strand of lightning as it darted through the dark and heavy skies. The pop song on the radio was barely audible underneath the wail of the storm that surrounded her, and even that soft murmuring sound was lost as a high-pitched tone blared into the small space of the cab. The mechanized voice was quick to follow.

_“The National Weather Service in Lucas has issued a tornado warning for southeastern Grant County in southwestern Kansas, west-central Haskell County in southwestern Kansas, until 7:32 PM Central Standard Time. At 7:04 PM Central Standard Time, a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado was located six miles southeast of Lucas, moving northeast at forty miles per hour –”_

Holding back a string of expletives, Dorothy pressed her foot more firmly on the gas. She was furious at herself for not leaving Sam’s earlier – she probably shouldn’t have gone over at all, knowing a storm was on its way – and now she was worried for Em and Henry, thinking about how much it took to coax the two of them down into the underground shelter, wondering if she should bother trying to call home even though the service out here was always spotty in the best of times. 

Gusts of wind rocked the truck back and forth a little as she felt around in her pocket for her phone. She had just turned it on, glancing down at the screen as her thumb reached for the little green icon, when she saw it, a gray ghost dancing on the edge of her sight. And then her foot hit the brakes, the truck squealing to an immediate stop along the windswept asphalt. 

She knew exactly what it was – like any kid from Kansas, she would have instantly recognized that familiar funnel shape, if only from seeing it dozens of times in pictures and movies. But it was something else to see it with her own eyes, twisting and turning even as it curved a path along the ground, consuming everything that lay within its reach.

She couldn’t move, her body frozen in her seat as she watched it pass through the open field on her right, not two hundred yards away. But even if she could move, what would it matter? She was no safer out in the open than she was inside her truck, enclosed as she was within a cage of steel, and she could only pray that it decided not to turn in her direction.

Everything seemed to quiet, stillness surrounding her as she felt her breath fill and empty out her lungs.  _Was this what it felt like to be about to die?_  she wondered, somehow unable to keep herself from marveling at its long sweep, its undeniable power and surprising grace.

The tornado crossed over the road straight ahead of her, appearing – just for a moment – to pause and hover over it, before it continued on its course and passed into the adjacent field. It was only as it moved further away and finally out of her range of sight that she came back to herself, her heartbeat pounding steadily in her ears and against the heavy confines of her ribs. And then she knew – more than anything – that she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible before the thing changed its mind and headed back her way.

Keeping one eye trained on the direction the tornado had taken, Dorothy took her foot off the brake, cautiously pushing the gas pedal until she felt safe enough to begin accelerating. Her grip was tight on the steering wheel, her thoughts no longer singularly focused on her aunt and uncle but on keeping herself alive until she could make it back to them.

But as she looked ahead, she could see that something had flown into the road, something big enough to block her path. A piece of debris or maybe even a tree trunk, she guessed, until she got close enough to realize it wasn’t that at all.

It was a person.

An unmoving person, laying almost exactly in the spot that the tornado had passed over.

A tiny voice whispered to keep on driving, to get home and then call 911, because there was no point in stopping – no point in risking her own safety – for someone who was probably dead. Because who could have possibly survived getting picked up and tossed around by a tornado?

But then she shook her head, ashamed at her own callous thoughts, knowing in her heart that she had to stop. Whoever it was, she couldn’t leave them out here, not if there was the slightest chance they might still be alive.

She brought the truck to a stop right in front of the body –  _no, not body_ , she told herself.  _Person, patient… accident victim_. After a moment of struggling to get the door open with the winds still battering the truck, she raced towards the figure on the ground, the truck’s headlights casting a bright white glare over its prone form.

It was a man, she now saw, laying curled on his side with one of his arms reaching up over his head. Her hair whipped around her face as she kneeled and began to look for obvious signs of trauma, her eyes eventually catching on patch of fresh blood staining a section of his shirt right below his waist. There were small cuts and abrasions on his hands and on the parts of his face that she could see, but no visible damage to his head. She reached down, pressing her fingers to the line of his jaw, hoping to feel a pulse.

And all at once his eyelids fluttered open, a pair of haunted gray-green eyes now trained on hers.

“ _Help me_ ,” he rasped, and then his head lolled to the side as he quickly lost consciousness.

He was alive. Part of her sagged with relief, while another part was seized by the fearful realization that she had no real way to treat him out here. He could just as easily die under her care as survive, and that chance now seemed to be entirely up to her.

Setting aside the question of possible brain injury, she turned her attention to the wound at his side, gently pulling up his shirt from where it was tucked into his pants. At that moment, she couldn’t help but notice that his hips were encircled by a leather belt, from which dangled what appeared to be _an actual metal sword_ , the decorative hilt glinting with bronze.

“What the…?” she muttered to herself, giving herself just the briefest of seconds to wonder what kind of people ran around on country roads wearing swords and getting themselves sucked up into tornados, before leaning over to examine the deep gash cut along his mid-section. It was still hemorrhaging, perhaps not as much as it had been, based on the discoloration of his shirt and the crimson stains along his skin, but even so it was cause for definite concern. She needed to staunch the bleeding, and then she needed to quickly get him to a hospital.

Pulling the looped scarf from around her neck, she wadded it up and pressed it firmly against his side. He recoiled, a tiny groan escaping from his lips even as his eyes remained shut, and she found herself buoyed by the possibility that he might be returning to consciousness. She needed him to be able to stand and walk – or at least limp – because there was no way in hell she was going to be able to get him into her truck all by herself.

Right now, though, she had to find a way to keep her makeshift compress in place. Hoisting his arm up, she dropped it like a weight right on top of her scarf, which was already beginning to darken with bloodstains. As quickly as she could, she pulled off her flannel shirt and reached around him so that she could tug one of the sleeves underneath his body, with the hope that she would be able to knot the two sleeves together and keep the length of fabric tied tightly around him. But, God, he was heavy, and it took more effort than she had anticipated, rolling him forward and then back, before she was finally able to yank it all into place. He groaned again and she gazed over at his face, at the days-old stubble lining his jaw, at the dirt and dried blood blended together like paint covering his skin.

“Hey, _hey_ ,” she said softly, as she shook his shoulder. “Whoever you are, you’ve got to wake up for me, okay?”

He murmured, but didn’t open his eyes, and she shook him again, her hand finally reaching down to cup the side of his face.

“C’mon, mister, we _really_ need to get out of here.” She glanced up at the skies, still dark and threatening, the rough winds continuing to pummel everything in sight. “You need to help me here.”

There was a grunt and his eyes opened slightly, enough for her to see their color once again, and then his gaze turned itself on her, transforming with a look of confusion and fear.

“ _There_ you are,” she said, trying her best to sound comforting, as if they weren’t all alone in the middle of a country road, surrounded by a potentially deadly windstorm. “Hey, why don’t we sit up, alright?”

Keeping one hand pressed against the wound at his side, she slid the other back behind his shoulder, and with some shaky assistance on his part, she was finally able to pull him up into a sitting position.

“That’s great, you’re doing great,” she said, although she was beginning to suspect her reassurance was as much for herself as it was for him. “You okay?”

He nodded – or he could have just been trembling, it was hard to tell – and she gave herself a moment to look him over a little more closely. Despite the mess, the cuts on his face were superficial, nothing that would need more than a stitch or two. She did a quick scan of the rest of his head, running her hand gently against his close-cropped hair to feel for possible cranial wounds.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Do you think you can stand?”

He made a low rumble of assent and nodded once more. His face, she noted, was long and narrow, with heavy brows and a straight jawline leading to a square chin. For a moment, she let herself wonder what he might look like underneath all the blood and the dirt, and then quickly pushed that aside to focus on the more pressing question of his survival.

“We’re going to do this together, okay?” She gave him an encouraging smile and lifted his arm up over her shoulders. Wedging herself tight underneath him, she wrapped an arm around his middle, careful to keep her hand away from his injury.

“Okay, so one, two, three… and _up, up, up_ we go…” she said, doing her best to hoist him up as she stood. The weight was immense and he staggered as he rose unsteadily to his feet, nearly dragging the two of them back down onto the ground.

“We’re good,” she grunted as she gripped him a little tighter, and he began to lean against her so heavily that she wasn’t sure how much longer she could last. And he was taller than she had originally thought, towering over her by almost a head. Luckily, the truck wasn’t that far, and she was able to drag him the few feet over to the passenger’s side, letting some of his weight fall against the truck as she scrambled to open the door.

Getting him into the truck was a challenge in itself, especially with that ridiculous sword at his side, but eventually he was able to drop into the seat and she helped him swivel his legs into place. That brief amount of exertion had clearly been too much for him, though: once she raced back to the other door and climbed into the driver’s seat, she saw that he had passed out again, his head flopping loosely back against the upholstered headrest. Her flannel shirt bandage still held, though, tightly tied against his waist.

“Okay, mystery sword man, whoever you are,” she said, turning the ignition and glancing quickly through the rear window before she reversed course back towards town, “let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”


	2. Chapter 2

Morning rounds took longer than expected – although that wasn’t much of a surprise – and it wasn’t until her lunch break that Dorothy was able to catch up with the on-call admitting who had been there when she had brought in her mystery patient.  _Her?_  she thought, rolling her eyes at her own ridiculousness even as the corner of her mouth ticked up in a tiny smile. There was no reason to get attached. He wasn’t a stray dog, and he definitely wasn’t up for adoption. 

Dr. Solomon was reviewing charts by the first floor nurses’ station, and with a little wave Dorothy was able to grab her attention.

“So that patient that came in last night…” she asked, “with the abdominal wound…?”

“Oh, right, right,” said Dr. Solomon, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear as she glanced up. “The John Doe.”

“We never ID’d him?” Dorothy asked. She had assumed that he would end up having ID in his wallet – or at least _something_ personal – that would give them a hint of who the hell he was and what he was doing out there in the middle of a violent storm.

Dr. Solomon shook her head. “We didn’t get much out of him, either. As he was coming to in recovery, he got pretty agitated and we had to sedate him again. He’s been out most of the day.”

“Agitated?” Dorothy felt her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“Started yelling, like he didn’t understand where he was or what was happening. Nearly ripped his stitches out.”

“So how bad was the wound?”

“Could have been worse,” Dr. Solomon said, shrugging a shoulder. “But there ended up being a minor perforation to his colon. You were the one who picked him up?”

Dorothy nodded.

“Good thing you did. He lost a fair amount of blood, and without the repair, he could have easily gone into sepsis.”

Dorothy offered another nod of acknowledgment, her mouth settling into a solemn, tight-lipped grin. She had almost left him there on that road – or at least part of her had seriously considered it – and the shame of it struck deep, rooting into the narrow spaces between her ribs. She could see him there, in her mind, see the look on his face as he pleaded for her help, so much pain and fear written into his eyes, and then all she could feel was an overwhelming sense of relief that she had ultimately decided to stop and get out of her truck. He was still alive, and that was all that mattered. 

Even so, the mystery of who he was continued to gnaw at her, an itch she couldn’t help but scratch.

“Do you have any idea what caused the wound?” she asked. “I thought it might be something from the storm. A branch or a rock, maybe?”

“It looked too clean for that,” Dr. Solomon replied. “And the wound was fairly uniform, without much dirt or debris. I would guess a knife or something pretty sharp.”

“He _was_ carrying a sword when I found him…” Dorothy offered.

The doctor’s dark eyebrows turned up in surprise.

“A sword? An actual slaying-dragons-and-rescuing-fair-maidens sword? God, I thought I’d heard just about everything…” She made a soft breathy huff, her eyes warm with amusement. “But, maybe, assuming the blade wasn’t too wide. You think he did it to himself?”

 “I didn’t see any blood on it,” Dorothy shrugged. “But, you know… a guy with a sword probably knows _another_ guy with a sword.”

The doctor laughed and Dorothy gave her a quick thanks, letting her get back to her paperwork.

The rest of the afternoon passed, like the morning, in a rush of patient checks and minor emergencies, just enough to keep her most of her mind occupied on the task right in front of her. But still, she found her thoughts occasionally drifting back to him, wondering if he had woken up yet, wondering exactly what had brought him to that place on the road where she had stumbled across him. More than once, she considered the possibility going to check in on him once her shift was over, a tugging impulse that she felt obligated to ignore. Because she knew the whole thing wasn’t really any of her business; it was probably just some accident that could all be explained, and undoubtedly he had a family out there who was trying to find him – who _would_ find him, if they hadn’t already – and then he wouldn’t need her to worry about him at all.

By the end of her shift, she was dragging, having caught herself yawning on more than one occasion. But even her regular mid-afternoon Diet Coke pick-me-up was no match for the fact that she had spent most of the day on her feet – and that she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, owing to the images of spiraling tornados and lifeless bodies in the road that danced across the back of her eyelids even as her body clamored for rest.

Em and Henry had been beyond worried – even though she had called them from the hospital as soon as she could to explain what had happened – and they had started fussing over her the moment she had gotten home. Well, Em hadn’t fussed as much as made multiple cups of herbal tea, pressing each warm mug into Dorothy’s hands before perching herself just on the edge of Henry’s leather recliner. Her questions were practical – and seemingly never-ending – but Dorothy could see the fear written into the deep arches of her face. Henry, of course, had found a place right next to Dorothy on the sofa, his weathered palm curling protectively over her shoulder, deep sighs punctuated by quietly muttered endearments in Spanish.

As she had laid in her bed, unable to sleep, she had thought back to Em’s questions, and the unspoken implication in them: had she been unnecessarily reckless? Had she really exhausted all her other options before she decided to deliberately put herself in harm’s way?

Even today, she still wasn’t sure. But the fact that she now knew that he was alive because of her – it certainly made those doubts easier to set aside.

She was walking down the hall, on her way to the locker room, wanting nothing more than to change out of her scrubs and be on her way home, when she almost ran right into him. And then she realized she hadn’t thought about him once since she had left his apartment the night before.

“Hey, there,” Sam murmured, his hand brushing along the top of her arm as he sought to steady them both on their feet. “Heard you had a crazy night.”

“Oh, yeah… kind of,” she demurred.

He grinned, his cheeks rounding warmly. “Everybody was talking about it in the on-call room. Nurse Gale, battling a tornado…”

She smiled back, despite herself. “I wouldn’t call it battling, Sam, so much as running away from it as fast as humanly possible.”

“And then you found somebody unconscious in the road and got them to the hospital? Sounds pretty heroic to me.” He tilted his head as he gazed down at her, his fingers now gently clasping the curve of her upper arm. “You want to come over and tell me about it? I could make dinner – like, _real_ dinner, with plates and napkins and silverware. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I make a mean spaghetti carbonara.”

The sigh was caught in her throat, and she felt so terrible, because it was thoughtful and sweet, all those things that – in theory – she should want. He was trying to be her boyfriend, trying to be there for her in a way that made it clear he wanted more than what they had, and yet her immediate impulse was to start sprinting in the opposite direction.

At some point, she knew she would have to end it – they couldn’t go on like this, with him needing more than she could give, or, even worse, with him imagining that she would eventually change her mind – but she was more of a coward than she wanted to admit, and there were nights she just felt so alone, in need of someone to help her chase the darkness away.

She pressed her lips together, offering what she hoped was enough of a consoling smile. “That’s really nice,” she said, “but it’s been a long day and I’m pretty exhausted… I just need to get home.”

He nodded, the warmth in his gaze undiminished. “Yeah, that’s fine. Some other time, then.”

And as soon as he was gone, she did sigh, expelling a rough breath as she pushed open the door to the locker room.

She was sliding her jeans on, one hand reaching for her long-sleeve t-shirt, when she remembered what she had been wearing yesterday, the flannel and the scarf that she had used to bind up his wound. They were probably around somewhere, stuffed in a clear plastic bag with the clothes he had been wearing, which, now that she thought about it, was no doubt sitting on the floor of whatever room they had put him in.

It wouldn’t be too much to see if she could get them back, would it? She wouldn’t need to bother him, and maybe, if she were lucky, he would still be asleep, and she could grab her things without him ever knowing.

She hastily tossed her scrubs into her duffel and threw the whole thing onto her shoulder, before making her way down to reception.

“Hey, Ollie,” she said, acknowledging her colleague seated behind the desk. “The John Doe from last night, the one with the abdominal wound – what room did they put him in?”

Ollie glanced up at her, and then at her screen, her hands moving rapidly over the keyboard.

“Um, let’s see…” She paused, her mouse clicking again and again. “312.”

“Thanks,” Dorothy offered, already taking a quick step towards the central bank of elevators. “Have a nice night, okay?”

“Yeah, you–” Ollie said, the rest of her words falling away as Dorothy turned and headed for the stairwell rather than wait for the next available elevator.

The third floor was fairly quiet, and she waved to the solitary nurse sitting behind the counter as she made her way down the corridor. Focusing her attention on the room numbers, she watched as they steadily grew larger until she was nearly to the end of the hallway. 

There was nothing particularly interesting about 312, nothing besides the number to mark it as anything different from the dozen or so other rooms lining the hall, although that thought did little to displace the strange flurrying in the bottom of her stomach. Through the narrow glass window adjacent to the door, she could see that the lights were off, which meant than he was probably still asleep. It was with that reassurance that she finally turned the door handle and slipped into the room. 

It was dark inside, but only partially. At some point, someone had opened the blinds a little, and now the soft light of the late afternoon was skimming across the floor, casting everything in burnished gold and bronze.

Her eyes, though, went straight to the patient in the bed, and all at once, she felt her mouth dropping open in surprise.

They had cleaned him up, wiped away the dirt and blood, revealing a face that she already knew, but was somehow seeing for the first time. Even in the low light, with a butterfly bandage marking a cut under his cheekbone, she could take in the long planes of his face, the wide and serious forehead, the sharp nose, the full curve of his bottom lip as it turned and gave way to his heavily-stubbled chin. God, he was absolutely beautiful. And asleep, he seemed calm, almost at peace, a far cry from the expression of pain and distress she had seen the day before.

 _Who are you?_ she wondered. _Where did you come from?_

She glanced around, seeing no indication anyone had been in the room aside from the nurses. There were no flowers or cards, no balloons floating up in the corner of the ceiling, nothing written on the small white board next to the door besides a name – which wasn’t even his – and a patient number.

Quietly dropping her bag onto the floor, she pulled his charts from the rack on the wall and began to flip through them as if they might hold some clue, something that she could use to piece together the mystery that was this man.

Across from the bed there was a chair, upholstered in beige vinyl, and still feeling the weight of fatigue, she walked over and sat down. Within a few moments, she had pulled her feet up and curled into the seat, letting the charts lay open in her lap. There was little there she didn’t already know, but still she found herself paging through it, determined to have it all make some kind of sense.

_Scar tissue across upper back and right deltoid, indicating previous trauma of unknown origin. Older damage to the metacarpals of the left hand and left tibia, indicating possible fracture._

Dorothy let her head rest against the cushioned back of the chair, glancing up at him once more, her gaze catching on the golden light as it fell across the side of his face, at the long dark lashes that fanned down towards his cheeks.

The room was warm with the strands of fading sunlight, and her eyes felt so tired. She could close them, just for a moment, and no one would ever know. She was fine, she was safe here, wasn’t she?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for fans of the show (and aren't we all?) and viewers of Episode 1, you are definitely going to be seeing some familiar notes in this chapter. I hope you consider it more of an homage than anything else, but after this point, the story will depart a little more from the canon. Anyway, thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoy it! (And a big thank you to everyone who's left kudos, comments, bookmarked, etc. - it's very much appreciated!)

She was dreaming.

It was one of those dreams where she knew it wasn’t real, even as it was happening, even as she had no way to change it or to make it stop.

In the dream, snow was falling like a sigh upon on her shoulders, the ground beneath her feet dusted with white, and then the snow turned to an acrid smoke and then the smoke to a fine yellow dust, a powder that smelled strangely sweet and tickled the inside of her nose, and as she breathed it in, her head began to feel heavy, her vision blurring, as if the dream itself was transforming into something completely different.

From somewhere close, there was a murmur – not quite a moan – and she turned around, not seeing anything that could have made a noise, until she finally realized that all she needed to do was open her eyes. And so she did.

Her neck was slightly stiff from leaning against the back of the chair, and it took her a moment to sit up and bring herself back into the world around her. But as her gaze began to focus, she realized what it was that had pulled her from her dream.

He was awake, and he was looking right at her.

“Hey,” she said softly, rising to her feet and letting his charts drop, half-forgotten, onto the chair. “How are you feeling?”

His eyes never left her, and it was slightly disquieting, the feel of that stare, filled with equal parts incomprehension, wariness, and recognition.

“You,” he croaked, his chapped lips barely moving as he spoke.

She stepped closer to the side of the bed. “What about me?” she asked, now more than a little confused herself.

“You saved me.”

She nodded, realizing that he must have remembered some part of what had happened last night, how he had woken up in the road and how she had helped him get into the truck before he eventually passed out again.

“I found you and I brought you here,” she said. “But the doctors, they were the ones who saved you.”

His gray-green eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t quite believe the last part of her statement. She didn’t look away, her attention held once again by their distinct color, and even though Dorothy had never seen the ocean, she couldn’t help but imagine what it might look like during a storm, as the churning waves were whipped by wind and rain.

It was too much, the way her breath pulled a little in her chest, and she gently bit her lips together as she momentarily glanced away and then back at him.

There were so many questions she could be asking, things she could be checking on – What were his pain levels? Were there any signs of infection? Did he want the nurse or one of the doctors? Was there someone he needed to call, just to tell them not to worry, to tell them that he was alive and alright? – but she could only think of one thing to say, the one thing she had to know first.

“So… what happened to you?”

His gaze froze and then turned inward, tiny vertical lines appearing between his eyebrows as he considered her question. It was almost as if he was trying to puzzle it out himself, to reconstruct all the fractured pieces into some recognizable whole.

“I don't…” he stammered, his voice deep, with the hint of an accent she couldn’t quite place. “I don’t remember.”

“Okay, yeah,” she nodded, taking another step closer. “Sometimes, with traumatic events, there’s some short-term memory loss. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I don't… I can’t.” His head shook back and forth, a motion so quick it almost looked like a shiver. For a moment, he looked genuinely frightened.

“Okay,” she said slowly, trying to keep her voice calm and measured. “What about your name? Can you tell me your name?”

He shook his head again, offering only a gruff rumble of denial, as if words themselves were too difficult to form.

It couldn’t really be possible, could it? Full-blown retrograde amnesia? Things like that only happened on soap operas and in bad romance novels. They didn’t happen in nowheresville small towns like this and involve nobodies like her. But… maybe they did, because here she was, standing in front of a man in a hospital bed who claimed to know nothing about himself – not even his own name – and it seemed to be causing him a fair amount of distress.

So Dorothy looked down at him, and with her patient but insistent stare – honed by years of professional practice – forced his gaze to meet her own.

“Hey, look, we’re going to figure this out, alright? I promise.” She raised her eyebrows, giving him a small reassuring smile. “Let’s just start with what we  _do_ know. You said you remember me?”

He nodded, and then shifted in the bed so he could sit up a little more, only to wince in pain, his hand swiftly stretching over towards his side.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be careful, okay?” she half-whispered, instinctively reaching down and pulling his hand away. She gently placed it back onto the pale blue blanket that covered most of his body, ever mindful of the IV needle taped right above his knuckles. His skin was warm, she noted, his palm and the creases of his fingers rough with calluses. He quietly stared down at his hand, at the plastic tubing that snaked away down the side of the bed, as if not fully understanding what he was seeing, and then he turned his gaze back to her.

“Tell me what else you remember,” she said.

“Everything was dark… and loud,” he began. “There was a sound in my ears, until there wasn’t. And then I heard a voice… your voice. You were there, you helped me get up and get out of the road, and then, after that…” His words trailed off, the lost look of confusion returning to his eyes.

“And you don’t remember anything else? Not where you got that wound…” – she nodded her head in the direction of his side – “or what you were doing out there? And what about…” She paused, glancing around the room, finally finding what she was looking for leaning against a table near the window. With two long strides, she was close enough to reach it, and she held it up for him, her fist tight around the textured grip. “…this? Any clue where this came from?”

He stared at the sword in her hand, and for a moment, she thought she saw the barest glimmer of recognition, until it vanished entirely, as if it had never been there at all. He mutely shook his head.

“Hmmm,” she murmured, putting the sword back down on the ground. “You were wearing that, you know,” she added, “when I found you. The doctors think you might have been stabbed with one like it.”

She watched his face, gauging his reaction, but it was expressionless, with nothing that seemed to indicate he had any idea what she was talking about.

“We could check your clothes, the ones you were wearing when you came in...” she said with a tiny shrug. “There might be something there that could give us some answers.”

But even that prospect turned out to be a dead end, offering little but additional questions. Dorothy found the plastic bag containing his possessions tucked away under the table, and after pulling out her own scarf and flannel – now streaked with dried blood – and setting them aside, she took out his clothes, item by item, laying them on the bed by his feet. His shirt she remembered, with the large stain of rusted brown unfolding at the waist, although now, in the quiet and calm of the hospital room, she could see the narrow rip in the fabric where the weapon had torn through. There were two jackets – one of scratchy tan tweed and the other of brown leather – and a pair of pants, also leather, that had no pockets and seemed to be fastened with laces rather than a zipper. _What is this guy, a pirate?_ she thought, her eyes darting over at him quickly. At the bottom of the bag was some kind of thermal undershirt, with a hood, and a pair of scuffed black leather boots. _Yup, definitely a pirate._

“Anything?” she asked.

“No.” He let out a resigned sigh. “None of it’s familiar.”

“That’s okay,” she offered. “It might take a few days, for it all to come back. And, you know, your family might show up before that anyway.”

She had meant the last part, at least, to sound comforting, so she couldn’t quite understand why the thought of him being reunited with his family – with a girlfriend? or a wife? – was pulling like a tiny splinter inside her ribs.

As she was putting his clothes back into the bag, a soft burbling sound cut into the quiet. Glancing over, she caught the hint of a smile on his lips, eyes cast away in partial embarrassment.

“Hungry?” she asked, a teasing tone edging into her voice. “I bet you can’t even remember the last time you ate.”

And then he really did smile, his whole face lighting up with it, and at that moment, she would have been hard-pressed to recall her own name.

With the hope of dispelling some of the tightness in her chest, she let out a quiet breath and glanced away, her gaze catching on the tray of hospital food that had been left at his bedside table. It must have been brought by one of the nurses earlier in the day, while he was still asleep, but there had to be something there that he could eat.

“Here,” she said, reaching for one of the plastic containers – applesauce, according to the foil covering – and a spoon. “You need to be careful after abdominal surgery, but this should be fine.”

She pulled the foil off and handed him the cup and utensil, but he seemed to have difficulty holding them up, his hands and forearms shaking unsteadily in the attempt before they finally fell into his lap.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, gently taking both items from his grasp. “Do you want me to…?”

He nodded. “I hope I’m not usually this useless.”

“It’s the anesthesia…” she said, smiling gently. “And the Ativan.” She sat down on the edge of the bed – a little closer than she would have gotten for any other patient, but he really wasn’t her patient, was he? – and held out a spoonful of applesauce for him to take.

It didn’t take long before the small container was nearly empty, and she was in the process of giving him the last spoonful when a bit of it accidentally fell onto his chin.

“Sorry,” she muttered, and leaned over to wipe it away with her free hand. For a moment, the pads of her fingertips rested along his neck as her thumb brushed against the soft prickle of his beard, and then she quickly pulled back, feeling strangely guilty, even if she wasn’t completely sure why.

They were both silent as she stacked everything back onto the tray, quiet softly filling the room, until she saw that his attention had caught on something by the door.

“What is that?” He nodded towards the white board, where the words “JOHN DOE” were written in thick block letters.

“That’s you,” she said. “You didn’t have any identification on you when you came in, so they had to give you a name.”

His eyebrows furrowed together, although it was hard to tell if it was in confusion or distaste.

“You don’t like it?” she asked.

“It doesn’t…” He shook his head a little. “I don’t know why, but it doesn’t feel like me.”

“Okay,” she replied. If he was already beginning to get some sense of himself back, that was definitely a good sign. “So what should we call you, then?”

He gazed back at her, gray-green eyes catching in the light, and shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

“No, no,” she protested. “That’s not how this works. I can’t just _give_ you a name.”

“Why not?” Was that a glint in his eye as he looked at her? “What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”

“No, I’m not –”

“C’mon, first thing –”

“Seriously –”

“– that comes to your mind.”

She was grinning, despite herself, not really understanding how she had gotten dragged into this ridiculous mess, and as she glanced around, her gaze caught on the tray of mostly uneaten food and the thin paper liner underneath the dishes that bore the name of the hospital, the first word written there somehow filling the tiny spaces in between her thoughts.

“Lucas,” she blurted out, quickly turning back to see his reaction.

“Lucas?” he repeated, even as a tiny smile began forming along the corner of his mouth. “Why Lucas?”

“That’s the name of this place, and this town. And, I guess… it’s where I found you, out on that road.” She paused, feeling somehow that she had said more than she really ought to have. “Is it terrible? Look, we can just find something else –”

“No,” he said calmly, waiting as she quieted. “Lucas it is.”

“Okay.” She nodded, softly biting against her lip. “I’m… I’m Dorothy, by the way.”

“Dorothy.”

The way he said her name, almost like he was breathing it, the syllables intoned with the deep pull of his still-unidentifiable accent, it was as if no one had ever really said it before. She had never liked her name all that much – it had always seemed kind of ordinary and slightly old-fashioned, even for Kansas – but now she couldn’t think of anything else she’d rather be called, any other name she would have rather heard him say.

“So…” she said, looking for something, anything, to break the quiet, “I should probably get going.” She glanced down at her watch, realizing how late it actually was, knowing that Em and Henry were probably waiting for her.

“Oh,” he said.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, rising to her feet. “But you should get some rest, okay?”

He nodded, looking a little disappointed, but she tried not to notice as she grabbed her clothes from yesterday and stuffed them into her bag, sitting just where she had left it next to the chair.

“Maybe tomorrow you’ll remember who you are,” she offered.

“Maybe.”

She gave him one last little smile before she turned and walked out the door, and as she made her way down the corridor she let her mind circle around his response. Was it just her, or did he not seem entirely excited by the prospect of knowing who he really was?


	4. Chapter 4

“So… baseball.” She pursed her lips, taking a moment to prop her feet up on the metal runner of his hospital bed. “Do you have a favorite baseball team?”

“No… not that I know of.”

“But you have  _heard_  of baseball?”

“Maybe.” He grinned sheepishly. “I don’t remember.”

Dorothy rolled her eyes, even as she felt the corners of her own mouth turning upward in response. His new favorite word was  _maybe_ , and she had to admit that it was kind of growing on her, too.

She had heard a lot of  _maybes_  in the last two days, been witness to innumerable shrugged shoulders and blank stares, and they still hadn’t come any closer to figuring him out. In all that time, no one had come forward to claim him or to explain what he had been doing out in that road in the middle of a storm. And he was still technically a John Doe – although Dorothy and all the third floor nurses called him Lucas now, one of them going so far as to wipe away his old name from the patient board and write the new one in its place. But a made-up name didn’t do much to hide the fact that they had learned almost nothing about him since he had showed up here.

Dorothy, though, was making it her personal mission to get to the bottom of it all. Thus the questions about baseball, and just about anything else she could think of.

She had started dropping by his room during her breaks, just for a few minutes at first, but each visit somehow seemed to last a little longer than the last, until she would finally glance down at her watch and realize she had been there for far longer than she had originally intended. And with her assistance, he was already starting to take short walks around the room, into the hallway, and finally, today, down the corridor all the way to the nurses’ station. His recovery was going well, although it shouldn’t have been that surprising – he was young and healthy and clearly in good shape. And now that he was able to stand, she was finding it hard not to notice how tall he was, or the span of his shoulders, or the hard, lean muscle of his arms as he strained to push himself up off the hospital bed.

Today, though, his arms were covered, as he sat in bed wearing the standard hospital gown along with a gray zip-up hoodie that she had brought for him this morning. During her visit yesterday afternoon, he had complained about being cold… well, he hadn’t  _complained_  exactly – he seemed more given to stoic endurance than anything else –  but she could tell he was uncomfortable with just the gown and the thin cotton blankets that he had been issued by the hospital. It wasn’t uncommon – a lot of patients got chilly in the rooms – but, of course, those patients also had family members to bring them something warm to wear from home.

So before she left work, she had dug around downstairs in the lost and found to see if she could find something that would fit him. There wasn’t much, considering his size – for a brief moment, she  _did_  let herself think about his shoulders – but eventually she found a sweatshirt in decent condition, almost near the bottom of the bin. Of course, it needed to be washed, so she took it home and threw it into a near-full load of laundry along with some detergent and a little fabric softener. Only after it came out of the dryer did she realize that it smelled just like her own clothes, and her sheets, and the pillowcase she rested her head against as she tried to go to sleep that night.

And as the two of them had taken their brief walk down the corridor, she had caught the scent of it again. Her hands had been on either side of him for support, her face angled downward as she monitored his movement as he walked, and even so she had breathed it in, fresh and clean, finding, to her surprise – and partial embarrassment – that she could feel her heart racing just a tiny bit within her chest.  _It was only fabric softener, for crying out loud_ , she had told herself. There was no reason it should have been having any effect on her at all.

Now, at least, she was sitting far enough away from him that thankfully all she could make out was the faint scent of hospital disinfectant.

“Okay, so I have a new theory,” she offered, as she snapped the elastic band off her wrist and began to pull her hair into a messy ponytail.

“Alright,” he replied, his eyes glinting with amused skepticism.

“So… what if you’re… a time traveler?”

To his credit, he didn’t laugh, although his gaze narrowed even further in disbelief.

“No, no, wait, hear me out…” And then she couldn’t help but grin. “You’re a time traveler, and you somehow lost your time machine. And you’re from… I don’t know, the Middle Ages, with all the knights and castles and stuff.”

She could hear herself getting excited and talking faster than normal, probably sounding more than a little childish and silly, but for some reason she didn’t care, and the way he was looking at her, it didn’t seem like he did either.

“It totally explains the sword, and why you don’t have any ID…  _and_  why you don’t know about baseball…  _and_  why you hate the taste of Diet Coke.” She glanced over at the half-finished can of pop sitting on the table next to her; yesterday, she had offered to let him try some, with less than successful results.

“Well, I’m not sure why  _anyone_  likes that particular beverage,” he said, a smirk edging across his features. “It’s disgusting.”

“Don’t judge. Once we figure out what your favorite drink is, I’m sure it’ll be terrible,” she teased.

Within the space of a heartbeat, the smirk had transformed into a genuine smile, the long planes of his face curving to meet the roundness of his cheeks. His eyes were full and soft as he looked at her, the color once again drawing her into their depths, and Dorothy could feel the weight of her breath as it lingered in her throat.

“So…” she said, quietly exhaling, doing her best to ignore the growing warmth of the room. “Time traveler?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe.”

She let out a little laugh and glanced away, letting the quiet settle over them for a moment. He was still looking at her, she knew, and before she looked back, she wanted to find something else to say, something more practical and direct perhaps, something that might dispel the disconcerting, although not entirely unpleasant, stricture of her ribs against her heart.

“Have you thought any about what you’re going to do after you’re discharged?”

“What?” he asked, his brows knitting together in confusion.

“Well, you can’t stay here forever, you know,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, they’re going to release you from the hospital.”

His gaze swiveled down towards his lap and then over at the far wall, formless and empty as he considered her words. The smile had now faded entirely from his lips, the warmth in his eyes siphoned away, and she felt a tiny chill racing down her spine.  _But he had to have known this was coming_ , she reasoned.  _No one could possibly imagine that they would get to stay in a hospital as long as they wanted._  But the lost expression on his face made her wonder if that was, somehow, exactly what he had thought.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, in an attempt to sound comforting. She hadn’t meant to worry him – although clearly she had – and now she felt that familiar tug of responsibility, the one that urged her to find some way to make it better.

“Look, there’s a social worker on staff. Her office is downstairs.” She pulled her feet off the bed so that she could lean forward onto her elbows, and with that, managed to catch his attention again. “Why don’t I go talk to her, see if she has any advice, okay? I’m sure we’ll be able to figure something out,” she added, offering an encouraging nod.

His gaze was still wary, but he nodded briefly in return.

But that look on his face – an unsettling mixture of uncertainty and fear – was never far from her mind, remaining with her throughout the rest of her visit, even as she said her goodbyes and told him she would see him tomorrow, even as she went through her afternoon rounds and changed clothes and finally made her way over to the first floor administrative offices.

What  _would_  he do once he left the hospital? The options seemed pretty slim, now that she was actually thinking about it, and could only hope that the social worker would have a few ideas of her own that might be helpful.

The door was half-way open and she gave it a quick knock, finding herself quickly met with a pair of bespectacled brown eyes as they looked up from a desk full of paperwork.

“Hey… do you have a minute?” Dorothy asked as she stood in the doorway.

“Sure, come on in.” The woman nodded to the chair right next to her desk. “Here, grab a seat…”

“Thanks,” said Dorothy, letting her bag slide from her shoulder onto the ground as she dropped easily into the chair. 

“So what’s going on?”

“Um, so I don’t know if you know about the patient that was admitted a few days ago, the one with retrograde amnesia…?” She launched into the details of his case – how she had found him and brought him in, his recovery from the abdominal wound, the memory loss, and perhaps most important, the fact that no one seemed to have any clue who he was. “He’s gonna be discharged in a day or two,” Dorothy added, “and I just thought you might have some ideas about what he can do after that.”

The social worker let out a long breath and began to wearily rub her fingers against her forehead.

“Honestly… there’s not a lot in terms of options,” she said and then, as some measure of consolation, offered Dorothy a small, sympathetic smile. “He doesn’t have a name or a home or a job – or even a social security number. As a hospital, we’re not really equipped to deal with this sort of thing. Because, in most cases, patients with this kind of memory loss… well, their families normally come forward and then they have a place to go.”

“So there’s _nothing_ we can do?” Dorothy asked.

The other woman paused for a moment, and then opened up one of the drawers in her desk and began fishing around inside.

“I’ve got a friend who runs a halfway house in Colorado Springs. Mostly ex-cons, former addicts. Not ideal, but you might try giving him a call. He sometimes has a space open.” She handed Dorothy a business card, with a name and a telephone number printed in blue ink at the bottom. “That’s about the best I can offer,” she sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Dorothy replied, glancing down at the card one more time before she slipped it into her pocket. “Thanks for this.”

It was hard to not to be distracted by the thoughts that were burbling up inside her as she made her way down the hallway and towards the exit to the parking lot. Within a few days, he would be gone, thrown out into the world with nothing but a sweatshirt and a made-up name, and with nowhere to go, he would probably just end up on the street or in a homeless shelter. Even the halfway house, as awful as it sounded, would be a step up from that.

For some reason, though, she didn’t want to imagine Lucas in any of those places. She didn’t want to think about him on his own, having to figure out this world – and himself – with no help from anyone. Because even if this hospital felt no responsibility for him, she realized that _she_ did, and it pained her to imagine him out there, all alone.

A part of her would miss him when he left, miss his stupid shrugs and his ridiculously beautiful eyes, miss all the times he pretended not to understand her jokes just so he could get a reaction out of her. As much as she had known in her head that he would eventually leave, her heart was finding it much harder to accept the quickly-approaching reality of it.

 _God, it was too bad she didn’t know anyone in town who was hiring_ , she thought, _who might be willing to take on the mother of all undocumented workers_.

And just like that, as she was pulling the keys to her truck out of her bag, a thought struck her, one that she knew was quite possibly the stupidest, most preposterous, most far-fetched idea she had ever had. Because it was absurd: they wouldn’t ever agree to it. _He_ wouldn’t ever agree to it. But even so, as she turned the notion over in her mind, giving it shape and weight, filling in all the gaps and necessary details, Dorothy found herself at turns nervous and excited, and then a little embarrassed about how excited she was getting. And then she couldn’t get into her truck fast enough, her foot pressing heavily on the gas as she steered her thoughts towards home.


	5. Chapter 5

Dorothy waited until lunch to head up to the third floor – there hadn’t really been time for her morning break anyway, what with her patients and the never-ending parade of minor crises that called out for her attention, and regardless, she really didn’t want to rush this particular conversation. She had done her best to ignore that impulsive voice in her head that had urged her to go find him the minute she walked in the door, that had made her want to run up the stairs and tell him all about her idea, just the way she had said it to herself as she stood in the shower this morning and in the car as she drove herself to work. Still, she waited, methodically finishing up her morning rounds and grabbing a packaged sandwich from the meager offerings in the cafeteria, before finally making her way upstairs.

She took a deep breath as she walked down the fluorescent-lit corridor, as she tried to steady the wobbly sensation in her stomach. He might say no, she reasoned. In fact, it was entirely possible he would say no. Because what person in their right mind – with or without their memory – would actually agree to this kind of thing?

But then, he had nowhere else to go.

She came to a halt right in front of his room as she considered what that might really mean. Was she – was her family – just taking advantage of the situation he was in? Even if he said yes, would it only be because he felt like he had no other options?

But she couldn’t think like that… or at least she couldn’t let that stop her from making the offer. Because she wasn’t about to let Lucas leave without letting him know he had somewhere he could call home, if only for a while, until he finally realized where he really belonged.

So she put on a friendly smile and let the tension ease away from her face, giving the door a quick knock before she slowly turned the handle.

He was in bed, pale blankets pulled up to his waist, still wearing the gray hoodie she had brought him. There was a thick open book perched in his lap, but as soon as he looked up and saw her, his expression quickly transformed from one of deep concentration to one of satisfied contentment. He closed the book, keeping one finger at his place, and let it drop onto the blankets.

“Hey…” she said, as she walked closer to him. “What are you reading?” This was the first time she had seen him with a book, much less one so hefty.

He glanced down at the cover and then turned it towards her so she could see. _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , it said in large crimson letters across the front.

“One of the evening nurses – Debbie, I believe – found it and brought it for me last night. She said I looked bored.”

“Did she?” said Dorothy. Things like that – books, magazines, folded-up newspapers – were continually being left in the waiting rooms, so it was good that somebody was putting it to use. And maybe he _had_ been bored. She wasn’t really sure what he did when she wasn’t around: he hadn’t been reading, and she had never seen him use the television. He didn’t even seem to know what it was for.

“The only thing I know about that book,” she said, dropping her sandwich on the side table, “is that it’s about a prison break, and there’s the main guy who creates a new identity.”

She smiled at him, warmth filling her cheeks, as a thought began to surface in her mind.

“Maybe that’s you, you know,” she teased. “You could have escaped from prison. It would explain all the scars… Maybe you got shanked in the prison yard.”

He laughed, a deep, rich sound she never got tired of hearing.

“I don’t know. I think I would remember getting… _shanked_.” He said the last word so skeptically, as if he wasn’t _quite_ sure how to use it. His head quickly tilted in her direction, eyebrows furrowed into a question mark against the narrow angles of his face. “And when have you seen any of my scars?”

“I’ve read your charts,” she shrugged. “And I was there when they started cutting your clothes off. I’ve seen a lot.” Realizing what she had just admitted, Dorothy could feel her face start to burn even as she pressed her lips together and glanced away – trying to look anywhere but at him – and then all she wanted to do was change the subject.

“How do you feel about a little lunchtime walk?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “If you’re feeling adventurous, we could actually try to get off of this floor…”

It didn’t take much more convincing than that. Within a few minutes, he had pushed back the blankets and hauled himself out of bed – with a little assistance on her part – and they slowly made their way down the corridor. He could walk without her help now, relying solely on the support of a mobile IV pole, and she found herself fairly impressed with how much progress he had made over the past couple of days. He seemed determined not to be stuck in a hospital bed, and that alone boded well for his long-term recovery.

Once they got to the elevator, rather than turning around and heading back towards his room – their habit over the past few days – she pressed the call button, a soft smile playing on her lips.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She didn’t say anything, even as the elevator arrived and the doors slowly opened, the small space already occupied by a doctor and an orderly with a cart full of clean folded linens. It took the two of them a moment to negotiate the wheels of his IV pole over the ridged gaps in the flooring before she was able to locate the button for the floor she wanted. But the smile on her face somehow refused to be dislodged, and as she glanced up at him, she wasn’t entirely surprised to find his playful expression mirroring her own.

It was silly, she knew, not telling him where they were headed, but for some reason, she just wanted it to be a surprise. It was one of her favorite places in the hospital, where she sometimes went when she was needed a lift in her spirits, and she couldn’t help but think it might do him some good, too. She wanted him in an expansive mood when she told him her idea.

She had already had to sell it once, the night before, to Em and Henry, and that had proven trickier than she had originally thought.

 _“We’re not a charity, Dorothy,”_ Em had said as they sat in the kitchen, thin lines etching across her forehead as she spoke. _“We can’t just bring in strangers off the street.”_

 _“He’s not a stranger…”_ Dorothy had answered, for a moment thinking of the way his eyes seemed to light up whenever she walked into a room. _“And it wouldn’t be charity. He could do the work.”_

_“Does he even know the first thing about it? It’s not as easy as it looks.”_

Dorothy had smiled to herself; she had almost said the word _maybe_. _“I don’t know,”_ she had admitted. _“But I think he could learn.”_

They hadn’t said anything, and she had felt her smile fading, knowing that their joint silence could easily be translated as hesitation, or even as an unstated refusal. She had looked at Henry, perhaps more desperately than she had meant to, and he had met her gaze, his weathered hand cupping over hers.

 _“This man, this patient, he sounds important to you, hija,”_ he had said, and it wasn’t until that moment that she had realized how right he was. Lucas _was_ important to her – exactly why, she couldn’t really say – but she knew that more than anything she needed to convince the two of them to agree to her idea. She had nodded as she squeezed Henry’s hand, before glancing back at Em.

 _“Can we just try it? Please?”_ she had asked. _“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but… it seems wrong not to try to help him.”_

Em and Henry had looked at each other then, Em’s slightly raised eyebrows the only indication that she might be considering taking a new position on the matter, and Dorothy couldn’t help but feel a flush of excitement as it began humming through her veins.

The question was: would Lucas be as readily convinced?

She led him down another corridor and past two sets of double doors, the wheels of his IV pole squeaking against the smooth linoleum floor, until they finally found themselves in front of a large glass window set into the wall. Through it she could see at least a dozen newborns, nestled in their cribs, each one sporting a tiny pink or blue cap. There were a few parents on this side of the wall, but they seemed too enchanted with their infants on the other side of the glass to pay either Dorothy or Lucas that much attention.

“I’m sorry we haven’t found your family yet,” she said, as they both gazed into the gentle hubbub of the nursery.

He nodded, but didn’t say anything, his unfocused expression reflected in the glass.

“Until we do, though… until we figure out who you are, I think I know a place where you can stay. It’s just, well…” – she turned towards him and caught his glance, offering him a small, hopeful smile – “...how do you feel about farm work?”

“Farm work?” he repeated, his face a perfect mixture of confusion and curiosity.

“You remember how I told you about Em and Henry?” she asked.

He nodded; during her visits, she had already told him a little about her family, how they all lived on a farm just outside of town.

“We normally have help, with some of the work – a farmhand. Because I’m here, and the two of them can’t do it all on their own.”

That reality had become more and more obvious over the last few years – or at least Dorothy had begun to notice it more – Em with her back that seemed to be paining her more and more, and Henry with his hands, already beginning to show signs of arthritis. Their last farmhand had left two months ago, followed his girlfriend when she moved back home to Tulsa, and right now, they had no one to help at all.

“It _is_ a lot of physical labor,” she explained, “but if you don’t mind that kind of work, we could offer you a job, and a place to stay… at least until you get everything figured out. There’s a separate room for the farmhand, off the barn, that Henry built a while back. It’s got a bathroom and a mini-fridge and a microwave, although you’d be welcome to eat with the three of us…”

She could feel herself babbling, and it wasn’t helping that he was offering nothing in response, his face blank and unreadable as he stood across from her.

“The thing is… I went to talk to the social worker yesterday, and she told me that once you’re released from here, they don’t really have anywhere you can go, not unless you want to spend some quality time with a bunch of ex-cons. And I just thought, in the meantime, until you find your family, you might be willing to help us out.”

Still, he stood there, saying nothing, the silence filling the space between them, and she knew he had to be looking for a way to tell her no politely. Her chest ached roughly with disappointment – as well as a rapidly-growing sense of embarrassment, mostly directed at herself for having thought up this ludicrous plan and for actually having spoken it aloud. She had known this was a possibility, but that still didn’t stop it from hurting all the same.

“Yeah, look, it was just an idea…” she said, backtracking as best she could. “You can just forget I said anything –”

“I accept.”

“You do?”

He nodded, his gaze calm and wide, even as warmth began to settle within the depths of his grey-green eyes. His beard was growing out a little – he must have gone days now, without a shave – as dark scruff followed the sharp line of his jaw and the curve of his chin.

“Dorothy, if this is something I can do for you, in some small way repay the debts I owe you, then I am more than happy to agree. I suspect, though,” he added, a tiny curve edging upwards against the corner of his mouth, “that this was designed more for my benefit than for yours.”

She laughed a little. “Let’s just call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“If you insist,” he said, his head tilted in acknowledgement.

It was becoming slightly tricky to breathe, what with growing warmth and heaviness of the air as it made its way into her lungs. Even the hallway itself seemed smaller, all her senses becoming acutely aware of the small distance between the two of them. And she needed to ignore the strange compulsion that was passing through her, the one that urged her to take a step closer, or perhaps _more_ than just one, just so she might know if his heart was fluttering just as rapidly as hers was. So she took a deep breath and pulled her gaze from his, reminding herself that she was a trained professional, at her job, not a silly teenager standing outside the locker of her high school crush.

“We should probably head back,” she said, nodding in the direction of the elevators. “There’s a turkey sandwich calling my name. And you don’t want to leave _The Count of Monte Cristo_ waiting.”

And as they walked, she began to realize that this plan – one that would involve seeing him every day, the two of them talking, and laughing, just as they were now – might actually be just as foolish as she originally thought, but for completely different reasons.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr (@lafiametta) about all things Dorothy/Lucas!


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